Modern Family “Tableau Vivant” Review

Modern Family “Tableau Vivant” Review

Like most families, the characters on Modern Family have had their fair share of petty arguments. On tonight’s episode, “Tableau Vivant,” everyone was a little more on edge than usual as family bickering weaved its way through all three households.

Mitch had been doing some work for Phil’s real estate firm and after Mitch’s poor performance, Phil was tasked with firing Mitch. Phil had no idea that Mitch was intentionally being late and was hoping to terminate his arrangement with Phil’s firm early.

As a general rule, I’m not a fan of conflict on television that stems from a failure to communicate effectively, so I was worried that Mitch and Phil would do this dance for too long. Phil’s stress blinking was a laugh, but I was desperate for him to just spit out the truth and get on with it. Much to my relief, Phil fired Mitch right when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to tolerate it anymore.

Immediately, the story line became so much more amusing and I was cracking up at the “lazy guy” and “lawyer with the attitude” cracks that Mitch had to listen to from the confines of the elevator. Mitch had been so smug earlier in the episode that having Phil’s coworkers knock him down a peg or two didn’t feel like too much of a cheap shot and Mitch’s shocked reactions to their comments were pretty hilarious.

Claire and Cam got into a heat over their parenting styles. Cam and Mitch had read something that said that children rebelled against the word “no,” so they had decided to not use that word with Lily. Claire was at her wits end with Lily and was passive aggressively pointing out the flaws in Cam’s no to the word “no” parenting style. Read More...